Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-23 and Invasion

[Josquius]

I find it very curious that so much is said of Chechens and they've become Russia's go to thugs.
They've managed to spin Putin's Chechen war as the work of nasty outsiders?

[Zanza]

Germany considers to buy the Iron Dome system from Israel to protect Central Europe from ballistic missiles. The other countries would still need launchers, but the radar and command center would be provided by Germany. Seems a worthy investment and one that should be greeted by our neighbours.

[Berkut]

I've been wondering what has been going on behind the scenes with the US strategic command, or whatever passes for it today.

With the possibility of a nuclear exchange being raised, is the US quietly deploying our anti-strategic missile forces (I think we have some Aegis and such for example) into place? Have we heightened our tracking of Russian SLBM assets? Updated the plan for a pre-emotive first strike?

[viper37]

Interesting quick takes from Mark Galeotti on his "In Moscow's Shadow" podcast. Particularly interesting on the role of the National Guard and what might, or might not, be going on with Shoigu and Gerasimov.

Edit: Also interesting - Economist article with Zelensky:
https://www.economist.com/europe/2022/03/27/volodymyr-zelensky-in-his-own-words

If you're going to post links to subscription blocked articles, please provide at least a summary if you can't transcribe the whole thing.

EDIT: and same thing with the podcast. For those of us who are not going to listen to Mark Galeotti's podcast, what would you say are his salient points?

Install the extension uBlock Origin for all browser you use, than PM me.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I've been wondering what has been going on behind the scenes with the US strategic command, or whatever passes for it today.

With the possibility of a nuclear exchange being raised, is the US quietly deploying our anti-strategic missile forces (I think we have some Aegis and such for example) into place? Have we heightened our tracking of Russian SLBM assets? Updated the plan for a pre-emotive first strike?

Other than maybe some systemic reviews I doubt anything has massively changed. Our anti-strategic missile systems are largely untested in serious conditions and while they'd probably sort of work, wouldn't be particularly reliable at shooting down an ICBM. I think we basically try to track Russian SLBM assets "as best as can at all times", so I'd be surprised if there was a "track them even harder" button (a lot of the specifics of our submarine activities are highly classified so who knows.) Russia has a lot of lower yield nuclear weapons that could be easily used against Ukraine via delivery system we just can't meaningfully stop--for example they could load one into one of their planes that they have in the sky all the time and just choose to launch it, we don't have anything that could stop that, and we can't just pre-emptively start shooting every Russian plane capable of carrying such weapons out of the sky, that would lead to war--and like us Russia keeps such planes active all the time even in non-war times.

The Russians also have nuclear-capable artillery guns (we built some of those during the Cold War but retired the program for various reasons, mostly related to not wanting to go down the path of normalizing use of them on the battlefield), for which there is no meaningful countermeasure.

[celedhring]

One of our Aegis frigates has been forward-deployed as part of NATO since February, fwiw.

It looked like she was just gathering intel in the Black Sea, though, rather than being part of missile defence.

[Berkut]

I've been wondering what has been going on behind the scenes with the US strategic command, or whatever passes for it today.

With the possibility of a nuclear exchange being raised, is the US quietly deploying our anti-strategic missile forces (I think we have some Aegis and such for example) into place? Have we heightened our tracking of Russian SLBM assets? Updated the plan for a pre-emotive first strike?

Other than maybe some systemic reviews I doubt anything has massively changed. Our anti-strategic missile systems are largely untested in serious conditions and while they'd probably sort of work, wouldn't be particularly reliable at shooting down an ICBM. I think we basically try to track Russian SLBM assets "as best as can at all times", so I'd be surprised if there was a "track them even harder" button (a lot of the specifics of our submarine activities are highly classified so who knows.) Russia has a lot of lower yield nuclear weapons that could be easily used against Ukraine via delivery system we just can't meaningfully stop--for example they could load one into one of their planes that they have in the sky all the time and just choose to launch it, we don't have anything that could stop that, and we can't just pre-emptively start shooting every Russian plane capable of carrying such weapons out of the sky, that would lead to war--and like us Russia keeps such planes active all the time even in non-war times.

The Russians also have nuclear-capable artillery guns (we built some of those during the Cold War but retired the program for various reasons, mostly related to not wanting to go down the path of normalizing use of them on the battlefield), for which there is no meaningful countermeasure.

I was thinking more of contingency planning for AFTER Russia uses a tactical nuke.

I suspect there are a bunch of people who have been working rather hard dusting off old "If this, then that" contingency plans that have not been taken seriously in some time.

And yes, our anti-ballistic systems have not at all been tested well. But you can be very certain they will not work at all if they are not deployed. I know the US has been working on Aegis mounted anti-ballistic missile systems - I presume they have to be at the correct global spot for them to work. It would be a damn shame if they were not there, or close to there, already.

Hell, there was a big scuffle a decade or so back about the US putting anti-ballistic systems into Poland....

[Maladict]

Dutch national women's football team refuses to play qualification match against Belarus. Good luck with that, UEFA.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I've been wondering what has been going on behind the scenes with the US strategic command, or whatever passes for it today.

With the possibility of a nuclear exchange being raised, is the US quietly deploying our anti-strategic missile forces (I think we have some Aegis and such for example) into place? Have we heightened our tracking of Russian SLBM assets? Updated the plan for a pre-emotive first strike?

Other than maybe some systemic reviews I doubt anything has massively changed. Our anti-strategic missile systems are largely untested in serious conditions and while they'd probably sort of work, wouldn't be particularly reliable at shooting down an ICBM. I think we basically try to track Russian SLBM assets "as best as can at all times", so I'd be surprised if there was a "track them even harder" button (a lot of the specifics of our submarine activities are highly classified so who knows.) Russia has a lot of lower yield nuclear weapons that could be easily used against Ukraine via delivery system we just can't meaningfully stop--for example they could load one into one of their planes that they have in the sky all the time and just choose to launch it, we don't have anything that could stop that, and we can't just pre-emptively start shooting every Russian plane capable of carrying such weapons out of the sky, that would lead to war--and like us Russia keeps such planes active all the time even in non-war times.

The Russians also have nuclear-capable artillery guns (we built some of those during the Cold War but retired the program for various reasons, mostly related to not wanting to go down the path of normalizing use of them on the battlefield), for which there is no meaningful countermeasure.

I was thinking more of contingency planning for AFTER Russia uses a tactical nuke.

I suspect there are a bunch of people who have been working rather hard dusting off old "If this, then that" contingency plans that have not been taken seriously in some time.

And yes, our anti-ballistic systems have not at all been tested well. But you can be very certain they will not work at all if they are not deployed. I know the US has been working on Aegis mounted anti-ballistic missile systems - I presume they have to be at the correct global spot for them to work. It would be a damn shame if they were not there, or close to there, already.

Hell, there was a big scuffle a decade or so back about the US putting anti-ballistic systems into Poland....

There was reporting last week that there is a group within the Biden Administration gaming out Russian WMD scenarios, so they have at least publicly said they are indeed gaming out what to do if Putin uses a tactical nuke, chemical weapon or etc.

We have a few significant ABM programs I'm aware of that would address some nuclear missiles--THAAD focuses on long range high altitude strategic ICBMs, Aegis and a couple related systems theoretically focus on intermediate range ones. Shorter range/lower altitude missiles could likely be targeted by systems like the Patriot ABM system.

The big issue with Russia using tactical nuclear weapons against a country it physically borders, is they have a couple ways they can deliver such nukes that are basically ABM immune (bomber dropping and artillery firing.)

There is actually a strategic foreign policy fear that has been around for a while that due to American under-investment in tactical nuclear weapons (largely for doctrinal reasons that we don't want to build them out), Russia has like 10:1 ratio of small yield tactical nukes to us. If they start dropping them out of bombers in Ukraine or even worse along the border with NATO countries at military targets, we're in a bad place. If we start using tactical nukes back, we'd run out of them long before they would. If we opt for longer range missiles...well Russia will/could interpret those as attempts to launch lager yield missiles at Russian cities, which could lead to a Russian retaliatory strike using strategic ICBMs at U.S. cities, at which point we go down the predictable path of a complete nuclear exchange and hundreds of millions of dead people across the world.

[Jacob]

[article]

Thanks

[Berkut]

I've been wondering what has been going on behind the scenes with the US strategic command, or whatever passes for it today.

With the possibility of a nuclear exchange being raised, is the US quietly deploying our anti-strategic missile forces (I think we have some Aegis and such for example) into place? Have we heightened our tracking of Russian SLBM assets? Updated the plan for a pre-emotive first strike?

Other than maybe some systemic reviews I doubt anything has massively changed. Our anti-strategic missile systems are largely untested in serious conditions and while they'd probably sort of work, wouldn't be particularly reliable at shooting down an ICBM. I think we basically try to track Russian SLBM assets "as best as can at all times", so I'd be surprised if there was a "track them even harder" button (a lot of the specifics of our submarine activities are highly classified so who knows.) Russia has a lot of lower yield nuclear weapons that could be easily used against Ukraine via delivery system we just can't meaningfully stop--for example they could load one into one of their planes that they have in the sky all the time and just choose to launch it, we don't have anything that could stop that, and we can't just pre-emptively start shooting every Russian plane capable of carrying such weapons out of the sky, that would lead to war--and like us Russia keeps such planes active all the time even in non-war times.

The Russians also have nuclear-capable artillery guns (we built some of those during the Cold War but retired the program for various reasons, mostly related to not wanting to go down the path of normalizing use of them on the battlefield), for which there is no meaningful countermeasure.

I was thinking more of contingency planning for AFTER Russia uses a tactical nuke.

I suspect there are a bunch of people who have been working rather hard dusting off old "If this, then that" contingency plans that have not been taken seriously in some time.

And yes, our anti-ballistic systems have not at all been tested well. But you can be very certain they will not work at all if they are not deployed. I know the US has been working on Aegis mounted anti-ballistic missile systems - I presume they have to be at the correct global spot for them to work. It would be a damn shame if they were not there, or close to there, already.

Hell, there was a big scuffle a decade or so back about the US putting anti-ballistic systems into Poland....

There was reporting last week that there is a group within the Biden Administration gaming out Russian WMD scenarios, so they have at least publicly said they are indeed gaming out what to do if Putin uses a tactical nuke, chemical weapon or etc.

We have a few significant ABM programs I'm aware of that would address some nuclear missiles--THAAD focuses on long range high altitude strategic ICBMs, Aegis and a couple related systems theoretically focus on intermediate range ones. Shorter range/lower altitude missiles could likely be targeted by systems like the Patriot ABM system.

The big issue with Russia using tactical nuclear weapons against a country it physically borders, is they have a couple ways they can deliver such nukes that are basically ABM immune (bomber dropping and artillery firing.)

There is actually a strategic foreign policy fear that has been around for a while that due to American under-investment in tactical nuclear weapons (largely for doctrinal reasons that we don't want to build them out), Russia has like 10:1 ratio of small yield tactical nukes to us. If they start dropping them out of bombers in Ukraine or even worse along the border with NATO countries at military targets, we're in a bad place. If we start using tactical nukes back, we'd run out of them long before they would. If we opt for longer range missiles...well Russia will/could interpret those as attempts to launch lager yield missiles at Russian cities, which could lead to a Russian retaliatory strike using strategic ICBMs at U.S. cities, at which point we go down the predictable path of a complete nuclear exchange and hundreds of millions of dead people across the world.

While I don't accept the conventional wisdom that a shooting war with Russia *necessarily* goes nuclear, I don't buy the idea that a tactical nuclear war can possibly stay tactical.

So the idea that we are at a disadvantage because they have more tac nukes is a bit of worrying about the trees rather then the forest.

But it is an interesting game theory. If I am right, and any tactical exchange will inevitably lead to a strategic exchange, then isn't the correct response to tactical first use be a strategic first strike?

[Jacob]

He talked about three things - I think his background is as a Russia expert particularly of security institutions (and also organised crime including the connections between the two).

Thanks!

Mpst interesting was the stuff about Shoigu and the National Guard. Basically it looks like things are happening behind the scenes, but it's like watching Soviet politics. With Shoigu specifically he thought the three options were they're telling the truth and there's been a medical issue but otherwise no change; Shoigu's out of favour and possibly (according to some rumours) under investigation); or Shoigu's a canny political operator who's decided to drop out of attention for a while to avoid having to either admit the war's going badly or pretend it's not. But the key is while he thought a palace coup was very unlikely that things are going on behind the scenes in the elites.

Yeah, I'm certain the place is fairly churning with palace intrigue.

Which is when he went on to the National Guard. First of all there is a case of 12 National Guards officers from Krasnodar are refusing to go to Ukraine (they won't "volunteer" to be deployed to Ukraine) who are suing to prevent themselves from being sent there. Interesting thing here is this case is public and has been on the news, obviously not as a big story, but something that other National Guards are likely to be aware of. They're going to lose their case - but it's still quite interesting.

I seriously fluctuate back and forth on how much turmoil there is internally in Russia and how much it matters. I think it's going to be one of those things where everything seems more or less normal until suddently it completely breaks... and then we spend a bunch of time examining the signs in retrospect. If indeed something does happen.

Secondly the National Guard are basically Putin praetorian guard - they're various forces (such as OMON etc) that were merged in 2016. They have a strong role in suppressing protests and also in providing Putin with a tool/protection against other intelligence and security agencies. The Zolotov was once Putin's bodyguard and only holds his position because of his personal loyalty and relationship with Putin, which is why he's running a force to protect him. So it's weird that the National Guards have been deployed at all as they're not designed or built for an invasion. They appear to be getting used less but it's just another point in the theory that Putin expected the Ukrainian state to collapse on contact and all they might need to worry about was putting down some protests against a puppet regime.

Yeah, the interview with those captured OMON folks at the beginning of the war was interesting in that context as well. But yeah, it definitely fits with the apparent "we'll break the Russian state and then it'll just be regular oppression like in Russia or Belarus" plan.

Thirdly Zolotov's Deputy, Roman Gavrilov, has been arrested on charges of leaking classified information and a little bit of fraud and embezzlement (fraud and embezzlement feel like the helpful permanent corruption of Putin's regime - if he needs to get rid of any official there's bound to be a fairly solid fraud and embezzlement case). Again something interesting in this being a public and acknowledged case, not just rumours. Also the case for "leaking" implies that the information you were leaking was true (otherwise you'd be done for "spreading misinformation about the special operation"). Reportedly Zolotov wanted to speak to Putin about this prosecution and Putin refused. Again just a sign, possibly, that stuff is happening behind the scenes - although almost certainly not a palce coup or anything like that.

Yeah, that's the great thing about corruptocracies like Russia, China, or North Korea... you can always purge political opponents or inconvenient folks for doing the illegal things everyone does.

[Barrister]

Just going through my head, I think the response to a Russian tactical nuke probably ought to be conventional strikes by NATO forces on Russian assets in Russia and out of Russia involved in the war in Ukraine.  Which of course would be a major escalation in its own right, but still shows some level of restraint and hope that further nuclear use can be deterred.

I'm also not quite sure how useful a tactical nuclear strike would be in Ukraine.  Ukrainian forces seem somewhat dispersed and largely avoiding any pitched battles, so it seems unlikely there are any military targets susceptible to such an attack.

[Jacob]

Just going through my head, I think the response to a Russian tactical nuke probably ought to be conventional strikes by NATO forces on Russian assets in Russia and out of Russia involved in the war in Ukraine.  Which of course would be a major escalation in its own right, but still shows some level of restraint and hope that further nuclear use can be deterred.

I'm also not quite sure how useful a tactical nuclear strike would be in Ukraine.  Ukrainian forces seem somewhat dispersed and largely avoiding any pitched battles, so it seems unlikely there are any military targets susceptible to such an attack.

I expect that tactical nuke use = spiral towards full exchange. And I'm... I dunno if okay is the right word... but I think that's the way it has to be.

[viper37]

I'm also not quite sure how useful a tactical nuclear strike would be in Ukraine.  Ukrainian forces seem somewhat dispersed and largely avoiding any pitched battles, so it seems unlikely there are any military targets susceptible to such an attack.

They could bomb Kyiv or another city left standing that hasn't fallen as they retreat.

But I do not believe this to be a serious possibility.  Chemical weapons on the other hand...